Ocupa Rio+20: Occupy the Earth Summit

The Occupy/15M movement in Rio de Janeiro, along with allies from across Brazil and the world, are planning to Occupy the coming Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (the Earth Summit) on June 20-22. Tens of thousands are expected to gather in Rio during the conference, many to attend the Rio+20 Peoples Summit. Unlike the Rio+20 UN conference or the Peoples Summit — hierarchical institutions guided by the logic of representation and Malthusian ¨green capitalism¨ — Ocupa Rio is organizing an open, bottom-up movement to take direct action. As one blogger stated:

¨It is worth remembering that Occupy proposes an alternative society - not yet another alternative project of society, or merely a self-managed counterculture. [...] Capitalism works in paradoxes: excess and lack, abundance and poverty. Much of their [the Summits] effort to create sustainability is put into re-balancing the capitalist equation. They want to restore the profit of the 1%, and to find new ways to control the 99%. Many initiatives of the Summit assume there is not an alternative to capitalism, and offer no more than a kitten´s purr, a mannequin called "global consciousness" or "environmental responsibility."

In addition to online and social media organizing, Ocupa Rio has been holding open meetings attended by Occupiers from across the region in the city center to plan the actions. For more, follow them on Twitter (@OccupyRio).

The Peoples Petition

We, members of the Occupy movement and civil society, highlight the critical window of opportunity at the Earth Summit to vastly scale up political, financial & public response to the environmental, social & economic crisis of our time, & to raise ambition to the level that science demands. We are exceeding 3 of 9 planetary boundaries (climate change; biodiversity loss; changes to the nitrogen cycle) and our economy has outgrown the ecosystems we depend on. We denounce debt-created money and demand urgent regulation for a steady-state economy. We vow to respect and protect the beauty and diversity of life on Earth, realising our interconnectedness with nature. Governments, corporations and financial institutions must wake up and dramatically prioritise people & the planet over abusive exploitation for short-term profit & “growth.”

In defence of our rights, freedoms & future, we call for:

1. A direct participatory democratic UN: inclusive rights-based global decision-making; open-source communications. Prioritise youth, women, marginalised voices & civil society formally in negotiations.

2. Ending corporate capture* of the UN: end compromising partnerships & transfer of officials. Exclude business lobbyists from talks. Expose & prohibit the bullying & bribing✝ of poor nations by rich nations.

3. Realisation of new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by increased cooperation, commitment, funding & resources, strengthening the Millennium Goals (MDGs) & cancelling unjust poor country debt.

4. Peace & demilitarization, democratising the UN Security Council, a binding global arms treaty, SDG on peace & conflict, nuclear disarmament by 2030 & transfer funds to local sustainable development.

5. A Financial Transaction Tax, abolition of tax havens & a Global Carbon Fee on extraction of fuels, to transparently & equitably fund life-saving adaptation solutions, prioritising resilience & climate justice.

6. Ending fossil fuel subsidies now & extraction by 2020. Invest in non-nuclear Renewable Energy for All: global wind/solar/small-hydro/geo-energy; efficient stoves; zero carbon global electricity by 2030.

7. Outlawing Ecocide as the 5th International Crime Against Peace: prosecute destruction of ecosystems e.g. tar sands, oil spills, mountaintop removal, fracking. Protect the commons & Rights of Mother Earth.

8. Zero deforestation of Amazon rainforest by 2015 & globally by 2020‡. Rejection of pricing & trading nature, including forests, water & the atmosphere; and rejection of offsetting damage/destruction.

9. Food & water sovereignty & security. Ban land grabs. Protect Indigenous peoples’ land rights. Switch support for biofuels & industrial, chemical & GM agriculture to small organic farming & permaculture.

10. Indicators beyond GDP: measure wellbeing, participation, environmental health, socio-economic equity, gender equality, employment, provision for needs/services, protection of rights, & peace.

This is what democracy looks like. This is Harmony with Nature. This is the Future We Need for a just, resilient, thriving world. Join Global Days of Action on June 5th & 20th to raise our voice to challenge & bring hope to Rio+20.

• ’Reclaim the UN from Corporate Capture!’ (Civil Society Statement)
  ✝ ‘The End Game at Durban?’ (WDM)
  ‡ ‘Driving Destruction in the Amazon’ (Greenpeace)

via Occupy the Earth Summit Rio+20:

Who’s planet is it? It’s our planet! “In every deliberation, we must consider the impact on the seventh generation… even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of a pine.”
—The Constitution of the Iroquois Nations: The Great Binding Law.

We Occupy Wall Street and thousands of other locations around the World, we are swarming, live streaming and communicating globally and in cyberspace, and we are in the hearts and futures of the 99% of the population that we represent. We are the people; business people, workers, farmers, the unemployeed, the homeless, the hungry, we are fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, we are everyone and everywhere. We are here in the tradition of Martin Luther King’s 1976 Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, D.C. where thousands of poor people of all races set up a shantytown known as Resurrection City.

Why direct non-violent action? Why are we Occupying? It’s pretty simple. It works! It’s worked for millions of people. Non-violent direct action is what made the civil rights movement and Indian independence from the British possible. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said: “The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.” The spirit of the Martin Luther King Jr. Poor People’s Campaign has evolved into an All People’s Campaign. To protect the future of our planet and of our children and for generations to come we must act now to take back the power of the people and not allow the interests of global greed to remain in power. Our objective in this dialog is to initiate an open and true discussion about how things really are. The key issues facing the world have been obscured by main stream political dialog and corporate controlled media.

The fundamental issues, the underlying root causes, and the difficult changes required to create a sustainable future must now be addressed.

To use a Wall Street term, we ran the numbers and they no longer add up:

• The current economic and social systems have lead to a catastrophic environmental crisis.
• The foundation of material, industrial and economic growth that the global modern economy is based on is no longer - sustainable.
• We are currently using 1⅓ of world’s available resources. We are currently destroying the planet through excess resource exploitation.
• The greatest disparity in wealth that has ever existed is happening right now. Currently 1% of the global population controls 50% of percent of the world’s wealth. In the United States the wealth of top 400 citizens is equal to that of the bottom 150,000,000.
• The unparalleled growth of global corporations has shifted the balance of power from national interests to corporations and banking institutions controlled by very few individual citizens.

We intend to establish a productive dialog on all key issues relating to the creation of a fair and sustainable future. We are here to begin a global public dialog on how to heal the damage already fostered on our people, our environment and our economy. We are here to create the future we want. We are the 99% (in truth we are the 100% – we should all strive to create a moral and sustainable future.)

Outcomes:

• Stop to the ability of individuals to plunder and pillage the world’s natural and human resources while hiding behind the corporate and government entities absolving them of the responsibilities of their actions.
• Create a future in Harmony with Nature.

Occupy Like It’s 2012

The Rio+20 Earth Summit Happening June 20-22 provides #occupy the platform to join forces from all around the world. All over the world we are saying the same thing and it is time that we stand in solidarity and start saying the same things together. By ourselves we may go quickly but together we will go far.